Bookmarks help to capture the currently configured view of a report page, including:
- Filters and slicers (including slicer state)
- State of the visual's selection
- Drill location
- Sorting within visuals
- Visibility of the report element
- Focus or spotlight mode, if any
Just like a bookmark that helps us to return to the page while reading a book, a bookmark in Power BI lets us return to the view of a report page. There are numerous utilizations for bookmarking in Power BI. For example, in a more advanced case, we can utilize power BI Bookmark to create a PowerPoint-like introduction by linking bookmarks for each report page to navigation buttons. However, we will first start from the basics which is how to use bookmarks to take a snapshot of the reports in Power BI service.
The report below is a volume analysis of Kemin's sales data. As one can see, there are many slicers on the page: year, salesperson, business units, month, and currency, which are a lot of slicers to click through before achieving the desired page for reporting. What if we want to always have access to a page that shows the data for KANA in Augsut 2013 for example? Here is when bookmarks come in handy.
Step 1: Manipulate the page to your desired configurations. KANA, 2013, 8, and EUR are selected for business unit, year, month, and currency. The column "Net Sales" is also sorted in descending order.
Step 2: Select the bookmark icon on the upper right corner -> Select "Add a personal bookmark".
Step 3: Name the bookmark and click save.
And that's it! When you select the bookmark, the configured page will appear like below.
If you wish to return to the default view, simply click the reset icon to the left of the bookmarks icon. This will reset all the filters, slicers, and other data view changes you've made.
If you wish to update, rename, delete, or make default of a bookmark, click the three dots on the right of the bookmark.
As a simple but powerful feature, bookmarking can be applied in a whole range of different reporting scenarios. So, it is extremely important to understand the various options that come with bookmarks since subtle differences in how the bookmark is used can result a huge impact on the whole report experience.
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